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Interview with Kemal Okuyan First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party, Turkey

From the beginning of the military coup attempt, Erdogan or other influential individuals from AKP are said to be responsible for this fiction. In the aftermath of a week what is there to be said on this matter?

Kemal Okuyan: To the ones who ask ‘what kind of a coup attempt is this?’ we can respond ‘what kind of a fiction is this?’. I do not want to repeat myself, but, if we are confronting with this question once more, let us first underline that: Turkey does not own a government which has such an integrity as to plot such a fiction and then bring it into practice. At least, some number of bureaucrats at critical positions must have been part of this game. If you can count five governmental authorities who trust each other, then I may take the allegations of fiction seriously! It has already been a week and there is a total confusion on who is responsible for the coup attempt, there are contradictions in the testimonies, the pro-government media is making contradictory broadcasts and are blaming each other for betrayal and provocation. I knew a lot about Erdogan, but I had no idea of him being a conductor. I mean, "to fortify his power, Erdogan made up the military coup, to support him, the USA put a sauce to this fiction, and Russia entangled to this fiction in order to protect him. And viola! Happy end: the Turkish democracy is saved!" Is that it? Is this what they want us to believe? We do not buy that...But there are really awkward things.

KO: Yes, indeed there are. This is because of the big number of the main governmental institutions that hesitated to take part in the coup and because of the specific aims of the coup attempt.

What are these specific aims?

KO: There are allegations that the coup aimed at carrying Gülen to a governmental position. This must be a joke. That he would come to Turkey as a khalif (Islamic leader)… No way. In this coup attempt there is something much further from taking over the political power. Putting in the centre the thought of ‘a new political power’ does not have any sense. Within the existing system does Turkey have a political power alternative to AKP? The Gülen movement, even considering its strength within the social balances of army and jurisdiction, cannot govern the country. That is why it had to rely on some forces within the AKP. Now, though they damn the coup attempt in chorus, there are pretty good things that would make them happy with AKP ruling without Erdogan. And not all of them are Gulenists. CHP furthermore, has a positive stand on 'AKP without Erdogan' formula. In short, the theory that ‘the coup attempters would form their own government’ is not much believable.

But they had prepared their lists?

KO: A governmental list has not been documented, yet! Regardless of this, we do not think that in the narrow sense they aimed at a ‘Gulen government’. We can guess that some of these lists are only gossips and some of them were served by the Gulenists to confuse the public. This is what they do best: Fraud. The reason of this panic and cacophony is the information that everyone is Gulenist. Undoubtedly, what makes this more or less valid is the fact that in the existing political system, everyone including AKP has cooperated in one or another way with the Gulenist movement.

You have also stressed this in an interview with Ceyda Karan from Sputnik News Turkey, that everyone except the communists and the revolutionaries have developed a relationship with the Gulen movement. Can you open this matter?

KO: Everyone, quite reasonably is putting pressure on AKP, they deserve it. We hold Gulenists as part of the same bloc with the AKP. For a considerable time, they were together but at some point AKP began to liquidate them. However, Fethullah Gulen has deeper roots. He is an actor who took role in the ‘struggle against communism’, under the flag of NATO and other institutions. He stated that ‘we should support the USA’. Before Gulen, his antecessor Said Nursi stated that ‘the muslims should support the USA for the struggle against communism’. Everybody speaks ill of Gulen today but after all, all such reactionary elements of our history have been declared as heroes then. And under every move of this movement, we see the signature of the USA.But the power of the Gulenist movement in the government was revealed later, was it not?

KO: Why was it revealed? Everyone talks merely about the clandestine dimension. This is a sham. And nobody but the communists shall reveal this sham. One of the factors that transformed Fethullah Gulen from a simple weapon against communism to a world power is the fact that the capitalist classes and any governments that they had saw Gülen as a mean to expand their power. Today nobody speaks about TUSKON (The Turkish Confederation of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists, which was the strongest instrument of the Gulen movement). Talking about the coup attempt without telling a word about TUSKON is in vain, and it is hypocrisy. TUSKON is not a simple capitalist organisation. Beyond providing opportunities to its members, it has functioned as a mediator for the capitalist class as a whole. Gulen owns more than a hundred schools, globally. And these schools are not popular only among Islamists. They educate the pro-American cadres for the bureaucratic positions in underdeveloped countries. Their graduates obtain critical duties. Turkish bourgeoisie has made a great expansion through these schools, TUSKON, the existence of the Turkish Armed Forces abroad, and Turkish Airlines' adding strategic flights to the related regions.

This process started in the 90’s, continued with AKP governments. New markets, new investment areas… That is why the files on the Gulenist organization had been skipped over in the past. The most famous capital groups, the so-called seculars, and certainly the Islamist capital owners owe a lot to the Gulenist movement. Nowadays, they are doing research on the whole Gulen genealogy. They probably will reach to the grandfather of his grandfather, but will they say anything about how he served the interests of the Turkish capitalists? The bureaucrats who called themselves ‘Kemalists’, including social-democrat Ecevit, were speaking about the 'loyal-to-country' character of Gulen. Now they are watching the preaching videos of Gulen with laughter and swearwords!

Indeed, nobody is supporting the Gulenist movement.

KO: The reason is that during past years the movement reached an operational force. During AKP rule, it became the brain and the dirty hand of the government. They infected the left wing too. I mean "the left wing." We shall not forget those who blessed the movement as a democratic element of civil society. Those who posed at their public meetings cannot belong to the left, but their being regarded as such is our shame. Today, most of these have come to support AKP against the coup attempters. In fact, they have not changed a bit. Now they are swearing because the Gulenist movement could not advance to become a governmental project in reality. But what else could the Gulenists do? They have already managed to penetrate the state. Furthermore, let us not forget that until the end of 2014, the oppositional bourgeois parties of the existing system had developed their strategy based on Gulen's actions to weaken Erdogan.

Let us then speak about the aim of the coup. Who is behind this awkward operation?

KO: Suppose you accept the longtime connection of Gulen with the CIA, you know that he lives in the USA, that he had been strengthening Erdogan's hand by the approval of the US, and that he is responsible for the liquidation in the state. After all that, can you ignore the US factor in the coup attempt? If you do, I would say: what a consistency(!) Not the administration as a whole, but a strong wing in the USA certainly had a connection with this coup. It is difficult to reach into the details of the connection, as a matter of fact, even the operational mechanisms behind the coup of September 12 (1980) have not yet been resolved. Sometimes, reasoning and theory is all you need! The USA is certainly linked to this coup attempt. The attempt did not have merely a single aim, they must have considered alternative consequences. I do not think that it was planned with a perspective of ‘absolute success’. They could have captured or even killed Erdogan. In this situation we could have been talking about AKP without Erdogan, whereas now they are trying to find a way to restrict AKP and Erdogan. If this does not work, there is no doubt that they have already created a suitable ground for a plan B or C.You had mentioned some evidence about the connection of the USA after the coup. What is there to be said after one week of time?

KO: The USA and EU did not declare their support to Erdogan during the first phase of the coup attempt. They have just used rhetorics about stability, democracy… I am not an expert in military coups but I have some background in international relations. This is not usual. Secondly, Erdogan asked for asylum in Germany… Even if these claims are not true, it is a fact that they have been published by significant sources, regardless of their trustworthiness. I point out to the possible untruth in such claims since there are so many details that what really happened may not be revealed for a long time. But who did spread such information? US officers, Reuters, Stratfor… Given these, there is no other meaningful explanation of the fact that Stratfor broadcasted Erdogan's flight coordinates during the most crucial moments. During the coup attempt, thousands of AKP adherents protested Stratfor, which shows that it did not go unnoticed. Russia officially blamed the NATO, for not backing their ally. Also, do you think that it is possible that there would be a coup attempt and from the divided Turkish Armed Forces there will be no intelligence flowing to CIA?

It is alleged that Russia informed Marmaris (the place where Erdogan was during the coup attempt) for the coming helicopters…

KO: There are many allegations. But if Russia was informed about this, they must certainly have passed the information.

What makes you so sure?

KO: Although annoyed with Turkey on the matter of Syria, the position of Putin’s government was to keep Erdogan away from the USA at the most possible extent until the Russian jet was downed in November 2015. So much that the Russian media was continuously warning Erdogan that ‘the USA is aiming at a coloured revolution in Turkey’. Some of these warnings were incoherent and some were based on real information. Also, you should recall Putin calling Erdogan a ‘folk hero’. Then the jet was downed, and Putin besieged Erdogan from every possible corner. The main strategy was the same: dragging Erdogan away from the USA.

But this time, Russia made a call to the US and NATO for getting rid of Erdogan. The control was lost and Russian media began even writing that Turkey had to be thrown out of the NATO. Erdogan could not continue to fight with the USA, EU and Russia at the same time. Erdogan gave Putin exactly what he wanted, an excuse and partial withdrawal of the support that he was providing to the jihadists in Syria. And Putin came back to the old point. The Russians still insist that Erdogan should get out of NATO.Is this possible?

KO: Very difficult. Putin shall tactically help Erdogan to strengthen his hand against the US and EU. Moving Turkey from the West to the Shanghai Five is a pretty hard project! It is not solely up to Erdogan! The Russians know that if Erdogan gets weaker, he shall make big concessions to Washington in order to save himself. They will try to prevent this from happening.

What about the allegations against Erdogan saying that the Russians gave a file to the United Nations? What about these accusations?

KO: We have been telling from the very beginning, this should worry those that regard Putin as the ‘protector of the peoples’. The Russian state is a capitalist state, serving its own interests. They keep the file, they either use it in the proper time or they do not. At this point we have to say that the real revolutionaries in Turkey know that neither the USA nor the EU can guarantee freedom and democracy. On the contrary, the international monopolies bring war, occupancy and exploitation. But it is forgotten that Russia does not own a different social system. The Soviet Union is long dissolved. Relying on this or that country or on various unions and axis shall not bring the salvation.

Let us come back to the internal affairs. What is going on?

KO: They are trying out a new format for Erdogan and AKP. Erdogan on the other hand, is trying to reinforce his power while showing that he is open for this new format.

Who is designing this format?

KO: All the international powers! The USA does not want to go on with a Turkish leader that is difficult to control. With the strong mass support and his ideological bigotry, Erdogan turns into a problem when he becomes more than a simple instrument. While Putin wants Erdogan out of his way in the Black Sea and Syria, he wants him as a partner in the energy lines. Turkey may end up as a more 'steady' member of NATO. This is possible. When I say ‘steady’, I do not use that in a positive way, of course. Note this: Erdogan wore out this country and the region in general to the extent that almost everyone, except the communists, shall accept a reasonable membership of NATO abroad and the existing (so-called) limited Islamic fundamentalism inside. Provided of course that he satisfies the markets with his trade-oriented mind.

Let us ask the same question for this matter: is this possible?

KO: They will try it. The capitalist class in Turkey will gradually start to take initiatives and use its influence. At this point CHP (social democrat party) is most likely to assist AKP, at least during this period. Actually the two parties are assisting each other. The administration of AKP has eventually decided to open space to CHP, or at least they want to give this impression. That is, for some time CHP will be welcomed because AKP needs CHP. If CHP did not provide the help at this moment, AKP would have real problem with its political legitimacy. CHP will have control on AKP. And in fact, there are some actors within the AKP who want to have control on the party through the hand of CHP. As far as we understand, some ‘democratic forces’ of the left wing have also come to this way. While they create panic that ‘fascism is rising, the slaughters are on the edge, the dictatorship of AKP is tightening’, it is interesting that they give shoulder to the AKP-CHP convergence. What they have in mind is something like that: the CHP will have control on the AKP and the left wing on the CHP. What a pyramid scheme!Yet, our question did not find its answer. Is this possible?

KO: It is possible but not ever lasting, because the country AKP created has more than one fault lines. The possible alliances will continuously face serious obstacles. There is no any condition that can satisfy everyone, no win-win situation. They can only create the impression of a normalisation, a false impression.What about a chaotic alternative?

KO: They will try to normalize the situation. They may not succeed, though. They may come with other new instruments against Erdogan and then he, on his turn, may try to take everything under his control. And they tell us that we should prevent this and allow for the normalization process. What a pity! Look, the Communist Party, Turkey made a declaration that the country was almost surrendering to the dirty hand of an imam, named Fethullah Gulen. After all these years that Erdogan has been governing, take a look at the country. Now should we calm AKP, let AKP have a good relationship with CHP so as everything not to get worse? No, thanks! Yes, we are aware of the danger but it is not possible to prevent anything this way. One week now, we are watching this bloody-minded reconciliation but at the same time we see the other side of the coin. There is no need to panic, by exaggerating certain points they want us to accept the normalization of AKP but we should not overview the fact that the counter-revolutionary forces are gaining power. The noise of the crowd in the streets is not the main point. The point is that with the rhetorics of normalization the counter-revolutionary forces have gained legitimacy.

What is it to be done? You are most probably getting accused of turning up your nose at everything or of dogmatising.

KO: We do not like CHP mentoring AKP and the ‘left wing forces’ mentoring CHP. Let me say the opposite: It is them who have been criticising the revolutionaries for the last 15 year while actively participating in the existing political system who are liable for the current situation of the country. The people in this country will either continue to have hope on the antagonisms among imperialist powers and waste time with concepts that do not question the capitalist system such as ‘an anti-coup position’ and ‘democracy’ and hence accept the dominance of the ruling class and its obscurantism, or, they will stand against this world of dirty plots and dark conspiracies relying on its own power and a working class character. Let those who say that this is not possible to get normalised together with imams.

How do you justify your abstaining from participating in the demonstration of CHP?

KO: Ordinary people who took part in it had some concerns that we understand. It is clear that we do not question that. Furthermore, we should not leave the space free for the reactionary forces. But from a broader perspective, as I have been telling before, a project of normalisation is on the agenda. If this project succeeds, Turkey will be condemned for long years of obscurantism, that is accepting the dominance of AKP. And if it fails, those that are getting frightened of ‘the bigots coming with their knives’ and on the other side those that see as a last hope the CHP-AKP alliance, which if proves to be false, will totally surrender.

The left wing forces in Turkey followed the Kurdish movement so as not to leave it alone by itself against AKP. Now, there is a new invention: to try not to leave CHP alone against AKP. This is a project of harnessing AKP through CHP. This sounds very much like the project that was tried by England and France on Germany of Adolf Hitler. It is the needs of the capitalist system that shapes a capitalistic world. If we are not happy with this, the efforts to normalise, to cool down, or to harness the situation are in vain. An independent, progressive, egalitarian and anti-capitalist class movement should rise as soon as possible.

Note: The demonstration was held by CHP on Sunday September 24. AKP supported the demonstration. A manifesto was read in the demonstration by the leader of CHP, Kılıçdaroğlu. The statement had no significant points further than pluralism, parliamentary democracy, national will etc. No mentioning of NATO, imperialism, the role of big capital and even Gülen movement. Most of the groups in Turkish “left” participated while Communist Party, Turkey declared that the demonstration will help legalising AKP government and liquidate all anti-imperialist, class based positions.

The coup attempt and the continuing dispute in its aftermath was not only the concern of Turkey but of the workers’ and communist parties all over the world. Definitely, the course of the events should be considered regarding the class struggle in Turkey but at the same time that very coup attempt also referred to the class struggle around the world, indicating the relentless rivalry and weaknesses within the imperialist order.

In order to share with the international communist movement, the International Relations Bureau of the Communist Party,Turkey has prepared an analysis which consists of 10 critical questions on recent coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey.

The following International Bulletins of Communist Party,Turkey will cover the answers of these 10 questions in pairs.

The list of the questions is as follows:

1- Who were the plotters of the coup attempt?

2-What was the aim of the coup attempt?

3- Were there any chance for the attempt to be successful?

4 - What is the place of Gulen movement in the history of Turkey?

5 – Is it possible for capitalism and bourgeois politics in Turkey to normalize in near future?

6 – Is it possible for Turkey to shift toward the Russia-Iran axis?

7- Is there a connection between the NATO Summit that took place this summer in Warsaw on July 8-9 and the military coup attempt in Turkey one week after the Summit?

8- Can AKP and Erdogan succeed a restoration after the partial liquidation of the state?

9- Is the future for Turkey an islamist dictatorship led by Erdoğan?

10- Are there any opportunities for a working class politics in Turkey as it is today?

International Bulletin of Communist Party, Turkey No6

Critical questions on recent coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey:

1- Who were the plotters of the coup attempt?

It would be better to answer this question in two parts: the processes which led to the coup attempt, and the very night of July 15th. It was apparent that the operational actors were the soldiers acquiring different level ranks from various Services of the Turkish Armed Forces, including full generals. The soldiers who were directly involved in the coup attempt took the Commanders of the Forces, as well as the Chief of Defence, hostage; had a raid to the hotel where Erdoğan situated by special forces and then followed his plane by F16 fighter planes; held air strikes aimed the locations of the Special Police Forces, Directorate General of Security and the National Intelligence Organization in Ankara; bombed the Parliament buildings; restricted the access to the Bosphorus Bridge in İstanbul and controlled the air traffic over the city by fighter planes for hours.

It is true that, in order to be able to accomplish such a combat, there have to be a serious number of commanders and sophisticated officers who are present by their own consents, besides the ones who act orderly. It is already known that the majority of the officers involved in the attempt were the members of the Gülenist movement, yet, when the several inconsistencies of the day of July the 15th concerned, the presence of some non-Gülenist officers and bureaucrats, who could be considered taking part in one way or another, stand out.

At this point the prior issues which led to the coup attempt should be referred to.

There seem to be many and various actors, other than the plotters, who would have been happy with the success of the attempt. It has to be recalled that the capitalists of Turkey have sponsored Gülen while he was growing strong internationally. There is the fact that the Gülen schools which raise pro-American reactionary cadres, TUSKON-the Gülenist confederation of Turkish businessmen and industrial capitalists, and other establishments and organizations of Gülenist movement have had various types of relationships with almost all the parts of the bourgeois actors in Turkey since 1990s. Moreover, Gülenists being a first hand part of the capitalist class of Turkey, they have been involved in various types of collaborations with other capitalists over the years. On the other hand, there are allegations pointing how the bourgeois opposition seeked for ways of cooperation with the Gülen movement, including alliances in the elections in the hope of controlling AKP and Erdoğan since 2014.

Lastly the international actors of this non-fictional and from some aspects professionally plotted coup attempt have to be listed. The statements coming from Europe and the USA on the night of July 15 until the probable end of the coup attempt was clear, did not indicate an apparent refusal of the plotters. All through that night the information released by international sources like Reuters and the think-tank Stratfor, proved that it was not only some group of Gülenist military officers possessed the intelligence of the coup attempt.

Additionally, although not confirmed officially, there is the news about the US airbase in İncirlik had served for the attempt. The facts that Fethullah Gülen has been accommodating and being politically active in US and his known links with the CIA reinforce the allegations regarding the supportive role of the some group of forces from the USA for the coup attempt.

Although all these detections depend on factual information and observations, we have to consider the inconsistencies and the oddity of all the course of events. The only unconditional truth about the actual plotters is that they share the exact ideology and class position with the AKP government and carry pro-American and anti-popular identities.2-What was the aim of the coup attempt?

The coup attempt did not aim a Gülenist government, as some believe. The main target of the attempt was Erdoğan and his close staff, in other words, it was the AKP ruled by Erdoğan.

If this purge would had been realised, the politics in Turkey would be proceeded with an AKP government without Erdoğan, supported by all the other bourgeois political groups. So we have to rephrase the question: Why was Erdoğan aimed to be purged?

The answer of this question lies within the political past of Turkey.

The AKP was formulated at the beginning of the 2000s by the capitalist class of Turkey, to serve the formation of a new model of capitalist accumulation in Turkey and the integration process of the country into the imperialist order. AKP had been founded in alliance with the Gülenist movement which had been an operational tool for the USA and the islamist groups reconciled with imperialism and capitalists.

Having been in power for 15 years, this alliance almost totally has eliminated the secular order; completed the full privatization of the public enterprises and attacked the organised parts of the working class. In 2011, AKP seized full control of the state by eliminating all the resisting points.

Yet, the alliance between the AKP led by Erdoğan and the Gülen movement started to shake after 2011 and turned into a conflict since 2013. It was already the year 2009 when Wikileaks released the Stratfor foresight telling about a possible faction between AKP and Gülen movement.

The transformation in Turkey had led changes in the model of the accumulation of capital and the composition of the capitalist class. The capitalists of Turkey, who had accumulated large amounts from the privatizations, had started to export capital and had headed towards to secure those investments politically as well. The interests of the capitalists required relations with Russia and Iran on mutual interests without growing distant from the NATO and USA.

The strategic agreement on the natural gas pipeline with Russia had been signed in that sense. This would provide a line for Russian natural gas to Europe through Turkey. Besides, Turkey needed natural gas from Iran and Russia. The Russian market was an opportunity for the capitalists of Turkey. On the other hand, Russia was actively involved in political tactics which would drive Turkey out of the USA and EU alliances, and this was partly getting reciprocity.

This bourgeois policy of keeping balances started to be represented in Erdoğan himself. As a once more the bourgeois policy, the expansionism of Turkey led to independent yet unsuccessful moves which annoyed Turkey’s allies involved in USA’s plot on Syria.

There have been an anti-Erdoğan campaign which started way before the coup attempt but has been intensified recently, in the imperialist press. Although that campaign had mottos like “democracy and the freedom of press”, it was obvious that they aimed to create a stable and docile Turkey.

We very well know that the aim of the coup was neither “secularism” nor “freedom”. The coup attempted to secure the interests of the USA and EU imperialisms and the purge of Erdoğan, which had been attempted before with several other ways but had not been succeeded.

i have been beaten by warders & police in adelaide, melbourne, sydney, london, belfast & milan

beaten to the extent where it was difficult to recognise my own body

i never ever took it personally, it was in its way historically, predetermined. my person, not my self was the object of their violence

only once, when i was nearly murdered in adelaide inn the darlington police station & then charged with the acts they committed, that i researched for reasons out of the ones i has already instincted

i do not know if it is still their practice but in the sixties, young cops were blooded in working class neighborhoods. it was both a way of breeding hatred for the people but it was to habituate them to violence, & to a certain degree, to have them learn the limits of violence, but all cops are not good learners, some of them congenitally incapable of learning, & the cops could kill, by accident, or negligence. the others knew when it had to stop & what parts of the body to hit

what they did not know or even want to know was some of the people they were hitting, were hit once too much & something in their self worth & i witnessed this with some very hard people, lost faith in themselves & the world. i knew many young men & women who were dead because they could not live with that

Michael, asked, interrogated, the difference between instinct & impulse. instinct is learned, is dialectical & as much as it is possible in dangerous circumstances it synthesises all those lesson whereas impulse is purely a reflex, personal, psychological - it is ego, it mistakes the field for the world. instinct places a primacy on survival (michael i am not sure but i think mao even speaks of it in 'on contradiction' obliquely, engels certainly does in 'dialectics of nature')

instinct is learned & i use it in my work to understand which of our participants is in immediate danger & which is, even if they are suffering, which they are, is melodrama

instinct is based in life & in art on risk, on being able to take enormous risks & to absorb them & be transformed imperceptibly by them

when i came to france in 1990, i had 200 francs, a reputation, some teeth, little french & a desire not to die in australia, which was for me in that time, inevitable

the synthesis arrived organically as it always does, a muséee xanted a performance of my work in a special exhibition of soviet painting, the centenary of maïakovski's birth was having a colloque in which i was to perform my work on him,a generous dentist said it was enough now to be protected from fools by my abscence of teeth so she created them, that act moved me, really moved me because her instinctual comprehension was so formidable. i was to be published by the most prestigious of belles lettres editions, who introduced paul celan to france & i began my collaboration with thomas harlan who was to remain & still does, even after death, themost important man in my life. even if god existed he could not have organised a meeting of two people whose concerns were almost identical.

we might be called flawed communists but that is what we are & remain

violence, at the hands of the state, as pier paolo pasolini knew is by its very nature sensuous. it is a sensuous activity at its most perverted as is torture & i can say openly on some of those occasions the difference between the violence & torture was quantitative. their intention was to destroy, without killing. that the empire reserves for africans, for asians, for the arab people, for the wonderful brothers & sisters of latin america. that i why in those cases they very often use proxies

what does it do to someone, i can only account for myself, if you can survive it, it transforms you, it makes you listen, become more attentive, to be less negligent, more generous because you have been a participant, i will not use the word 'victim' because in each instance it was my politics being attacked not my 'self', in those moments of intense violence you are a multitude, you have to deliberately take on the weight of your camarades & in the end almost innately but very materially the consciousness of those camarades protects you.

what you have been a part of witness/participant is evil, profoundly evil that is class determined & nothing any recent thinker will make me thin otherwise. i knew the eyes of those who were beating the living fuck out of me, i recognised those people in many countries & i had seen it in the lumpen faces of the fascists i had fought on london streets in 1977

the violence that was done to me, did not hide the greater violence of the inequalities of education & of housing, forms of violence becoming extreme today in europe. no it never hid that, for me it highlighted it

when their knees went into your back while the other was strangling at you, another pissing all over you & another calling you every name popular culture has taught them to call people like me, the multitudes. when their very care in not hitting you around the head creates a loss of breath that i can feel today because of my illnesses & in those moments today, surely the historical memory within me recalls

when you have been beaten beyond consciousness, consciousness remains.

fear too, disappears because you are aware of accidents, accident that can kill you, i remember in milan my head being thrown with great force on the corner of a table, i was wiped out & i was very surprised that i woke, to another beating, you fear their stupidity much more than their aggression

today iin remembering this, writing it down i hear their voices, loud insistent always rapid as if this itself will break your will - it doesn't, concentration returns very quickly & even though i have been knocked out & do not know where i am let alone what country i am in, consciousness, which is really the muscles of memory returns you have an operation & strategic capacity that these thugs are unaware no matter how numerous their practice. most people just want it to stop, you have other options

when all this is being done to you it is being done in an enviroment of both noise & silence, the thrashing of your body is itself creating sounds you can barely hear over & because it is so full of menace & your awareness of menace, it is silent, when in fact it is not, in every horrible experience such as this i have been given, unknown to the perpetrators, a terrible knowledge

a terrible knowledge, capital, especially late capital would like to conceal in it concatenation of imperial culture's agitation, that terrible knowledge is that the elites hate us, hate us so deeply, if they had the opportunity to exterminate us, they would.

i am not being melodramatic what the einsatzgruppen did & taught through the Rsha is the language empire uses when it is crushing counties & it is the language, the physical language that is used in every police station

imperial culture imagines people forget, they remember everything, state violence imagines it leaves you with dear but the reality is, it leaves you with the opposite

i know i teach the act of creation, of writing with more precision because of what the body has endured

Code Pink is prominent anti-war US based organization. Very high profile. After the Paris attacks they published a webpage that ignorantly cast the Syrian Government on the same footing as Daesh. This prompted me to write the following letter, asking them to re-look at their understanding and analysis of Syria and their position on President Bashar al Assad:

Dear Code Pink,

Greetings,

Its really high time that you re-looked your understanding and your analysis of Syria and your position on President Bashar al Assad.

By all indicators, Bashar al Assad has the support of between 70-80% of the Syrian nation.

Thus by constantly buying into the Western-imperialist narrative of Assad the Dictator and the Assad Regime, you are doing a lot of damage to the global peace and anti-war movement.

[The open letter is a response to this statement on a code pink page:

"Recently they issued a At the end of last week, we witnessed horrific attacks that left scores dead and hundreds wounded in Beirut, Baghdad and Paris. These brutal and unconscionable strikes against civilians have been attributed to members of The Islamic State (ISIS), or Daesh (Da’ish). People in Syria are also being slaughtered every day by Daesh and the murderous Assad regime." Code Pink, http://www.codepink.org/send_condolences_to_the_lebanon_france_and_iraq]

You are also insulting the Syrian People who have accepted a new Constitution in 2012, after a national referendum, all 56% of the population that voted. Syria is evolving into a multi-party democracy. That is the way that nations need to evolve and Syria responded to the voices that emanated from Tunisia and was negotiating the process, till the Saudi-Qatari-Turkish-Nato backed Islamists decided to wreck mayhem and chaos.

Kindly run through a copy of the Syrian Constitution if you still haven't. Even that of Tunisia. Whilst Tunisia was allowed to evolve, Syria was not given that chance at all. There are both strategic and economic reasons here as you well know.

You are also insulting the intelligence of the Syrian People, where again in June 2014, more than 73% of the Syrian nation went to the polls, despite the threats from terrorists, despite being warned not to vote, with suicide bombers and shoot-outs promised, yet the people voted in droves.

They voted to say, give a message to the world that Syria will not be divided, that Syria will remain secular, that Syria is a multi-religious plural society, that Syria rejects theocracy and stand for a modern secular democracy.

You would at least agree that it is finally for the Syrian people to decide who their elected leader would be.

For now that is President Bashar al Assad. Both his worst detractors have given him numbers that cannot be discounted - Al Jazeera stated 56% for Assad way back in 2012, whilst Nato itself says that Assad has 70% ....

Then how can these Western Morons keep on saying "Assad Must Go"...??

This is the result of pompous impetuosity that goes with a colonial mindset. We know better, we will decide your leaders for you. Someone that Riaydh, Doha, Tel Aviv and Ankara love ...

Thus here the only solution is that after once the scourge of terror is contained and defeated (and not merely degraded .... for perpetual controlled chaos), as the Russians have demonstrated in less than 45 days, the way ahead is very simple.

The political solution that is being discussed must be supported.

Finally after a new secular constitution is negotiated, as agreed in Vienna, let the Elections be held under the auspices of UN Monitors and observers from the UNSC, G20 and BRICS, Arab League, African Union, Shanghai cooperation Organization, ASEAN, the Bolivarian Nations.

In short, let the whole world come and observe, monitor, place CCTV cameras at each polling booth, have CNN-FOX-BBC-Al Jazeera at every street corner asking people if the elections were free and fair.

Syrian rebel groups backed by the U.S. and its allies “have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including abductions, torture and summary killings,” according to Amnesty International.

A report by the leading human rights organization details how extremist rebel groups have taken over large parts of major Syrian cities, in which they have created repressive theocratic regimes where critics are violently silenced and where religious and ethnic minority groups fear for their lives.

“‘Torture Was My Punishment’: Abductions, Torture and Summary Killings Under Armed Group Rule in Aleppo and Idleb, Syria” shows how the Syrian people have been caught between a rock and a hard place — with extremist rebels on one side and a brutal regime on the other.

The report focuses primarily on the governorates of Aleppo and Idlib, in the north of the country. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city, and the Aleppo governorate is the most populous.

Amnesty documented abuses committed by five armed groups that have controlled parts of Aleppo and Idlib since 2012. These rebels have been supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the U.S.

In Aleppo, Amnesty investigated the actions of the Levant Front, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement and Division 16, factions in the Aleppo Conquest rebel coalition.

In Idlib, it looked at the crimes of the rebel groups Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, both of which are extremist Islamist militias that are party of the Army of Conquest coalition.

Jabhat al-Nusra is Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate. The U.S. officially considers it a terrorist group, although Western allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have supported it.

Amnesty noted that al-Nusra “has a significant presence” throughout the Idlib governorate. Ahrar al-Sham is present in the major cities Idlib, Aleppo, Damascus and Hama.

Executions and strict Shari’a

Armed groups have repressed many Syrians who were themselves once supportive of the rebels.

“I was happy to be free from the Syrian government’s unjust rule but now the situation is worse,” a Syrian lawyer told Amnesty.

Rebel groups have established “courts” (the report uses the term in scare quotes) in Aleppo and Idlib based on strict interpretations of Shari’a (Islamic law).

Extremist Islamist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham have harshly punished Syrians who disobey their theocratic laws, the report notes.

It cites numerous cases of summary killings carried out by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Levant Front and rebel “courts.” Some have been “execution-style killings in front of crowds.”

Jabhat al-Nusra has publicly executed civilian men it accused of homosexuality and civilian women it accused of adultery.

In Aleppo, the “Supreme Judicial Council” run by the Levant Front told Amnesty that the punishment for apostasy is execution. “Death sentences are carried out in the detention center according to Shari’a principles,” the deputy director said.

According to the Carnegie Endowment, most of the rebel groups in the Levant Front coalition likely receive support from the Military Operations Center, a Turkey-based rebel facility that the U.S. helps operate with its allies.

Most of the “courts” run by these rebel groups, Amnesty says, are based on the Unified Arab Code, a set of Shari’a-based legal codes that were endorsed by the Arab League between 1988 and 1996 but were never implemented anywhere.

“I publicly criticized Jabhat al-Nusra on Facebook accusing them of committing worse human rights abuses than those perpetrated by the government. The next morning, Jabhat al-Nusra forces took me from my home,” a Syrian lawyer told Amnesty.

An interrogator told him he was not a real lawyer because he did not know Islamic law. The Syrian rebel threatened him, telling him he had to give up his profession or his family wold never see me again. After 10 days of abduction, hearing men screaming from torture, the lawyer agreed.

“I left Syria as soon as I was released,” he added.

A female activist who had just been released from detention by the Syrian government told Amnesty she was subsequently arrested and interrogated by Ahrar al-Sham rebels for not wearing a veil.

“They forced me to wear a veil and cover my face. They brought a religious man who made me kneel to confess my wrongdoings. The interrogator repeatedly threatened to conduct a virginity test,” she recalled.

Torture

Amnesty documented cases of armed factions torturing journalists, activists and other civilians who do not share their ideologies.

“I heard and read about the government security forces’ torture techniques. I thought I would be safe from that now that I am living in an opposition-held area. I was wrong. I was subjected to the same torture techniques but at the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra,” explained a Syrian man who was abducted by the extremist rebel group.

Syrian lawyers who have spoken out against rebel groups’ use of torture have themselves been abducted and threatened.

In several of the cases of abduction, journalists, political activists and a humanitarian worker told Amnesty that they were tortured by either Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement. Some were violently forced to sign a statement of confession.

“The methods of torture described are disturbingly similar to some of the ones used by the Syrian government,” Amnesty wrote.

Numerous journalists and activists were kidnapped and tortured by al-Nusra for “promoting secular beliefs,” the rights group reported.

One journalist who works for an international media outlet was tortured by al-Nusra rebels for “offending the jihad and mujahidin [rebel fighters] and for working with a media channel that opposes al-Qa’ida.”

The release form given to the tortured journalist by his interrogator said that he had been “acquitted of the charges after pledging that he would only report on issues that support the Islamic faith.”

Another activist was told he was being tortured for being secular.

Even groups Syrian activists described as “moderate” have abducted and tortured Syrians. Activists told Amnesty the Levant Front, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement and the 16th Division also tortured and mistreated detainees.

A humanitarian worker was abducted and tortured by the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement for complaining about the misuse of funds in a hospital in Aleppo.

The Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement is a CIA-approved rebel group that has received TOW anti-tank missiles.

Amnesty said Syrian lawyers and activists told it of cases of abduction and torture carried out by other rebel groups in Aleppo and Idlib, but it was unable to independently verify these claims.

Targeting of minority groups

The Amnesty report also shows how rebel groups have targeted ethnic and religious minorities.

'The Turks, Qataris and Saudis lost most of their cards and are now left with Aleppo battle card'

President Bashar al-Assad gave interview to Cuba’s official state news agency Prensa Latina in which he said the Turks, Qataris and Saudis lost most of their cards on the battlefields in Syria and that Aleppo battle is their last card, affirming that there is strong harmony between Syria and Latin America, especially Cuba, on the political and historical levels and that hard work is needed in order to invigorate the different sectors of this relation.

The following is the full text of the interview:

Question 1: Mr. President, thanks for giving Prensa Latina this historic opportunity of conveying your point of view to the rest of the world about the reality in Syria, because as you know, there is a lot of misinformation out there about your country, about the foreign aggression that is taking place against this beautiful country.

Mr. President, how would you evaluate the current military situation of the external aggression against Syria, and what are the main challenges of Syrian forces on the ground to fight anti-government groups? If it is possible, we would like to know your opinion about the battles or combats in Aleppo, in Homs.

Aleppo battle is the last card for the Turks, Qataris and Saudis

President Assad: Of course, there was a lot of support to the terrorists from around the world. We have more than one hundred nationalities participating in the aggression against Syria with the support of certain countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar with their money and Turkey with the logistical support, and of course with the endorsement and supervision of the Western countries, mainly the United States, France, and the UK, and some other allies. But since the Russians decided to intervene in supporting legally the Syrian Army in fighting the terrorists in Syria, mainly al-Nusra and ISIS and some other affiliated groups, the scales have been tipped against those terrorists, and the Syrian Army has made many advances in different areas in Syria. And we are still moving forward, and the Syrian Army is determined to destroy and to defeat those terrorists. You mentioned Homs and Aleppo. Of course, the situation in Homs, since the terrorists left Homs more than a year ago, the situation has been much, much better, more stable. You have some suburbs of the city which were infiltrated by terrorists. Now there is a process of reconciliation in those areas in which either the terrorists give up their armaments and go back to their normal life with amnesty from the government, or they can leave Homs to any other place within Syria, like what happened more than a year ago in the center of the city.

For Aleppo it is a different situation, because the Turks and their allies like the Saudis and Qataris lost most of their cards on the battlefields in Syria, so the last card for them, especially for Erdogan, is Aleppo. That is why he worked hard with the Saudis to send as much as they can of the terrorists – the estimation is more than 5,000 terrorists – to Aleppo.

Question 2: Through the Turkish borders?

President Assad: Yes, from Turkey to Aleppo, during the last two months, in order to recapture the city of Aleppo, and that didn’t work. Actually, our army has been making advancement in Aleppo and the suburbs of Aleppo in order to encircle the terrorists, then, let’s say, either to negotiate their going back to their normal life as part of reconciliation, or for the terrorists to leave the city of Aleppo, or to be defeated. There’s no other solution.

Question 3: Thank you, thank you very much. Mr. President, which are the priorities of the Syrian Army in the confrontation with the terrorist groups? And we’re particularly interested, because in Cuba we had something similar in the past, in the role of the popular defense groups; what is the role that the popular defense groups are playing in the theater of operations?

President Assad: The priority of the Syrian Army, first of all, is to fight ISIS and al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Cham and Jaish al-Islam. These four organizations are directly linked to Al Qaeda through the ideology; they have the same ideology, they are Islamic extremist groups who want to kill anyone who doesn’t look or doesn’t feel or behave like them. But regarding what you called the popular militia groups, actually, at the beginning of the war, the terrorists started an unconventional war against our army, and our army is a traditional army, like any other army in the world, so the support of those popular defence groups was very important in order to defeat the terrorists in an unconventional way. That was very helpful to the Syrian Army, because those fighters, those national fighters, they fight in their regions, in their cities, in their villages, so they know the area very well, they know the region very well, I mean the pathways, the terrain, let’s say, very well. So, they can be very huge assets for the Syrian Army. That is their role.

Question 4: Mr. President, how does the resistance of the Syrian people take place in the economic front to foreign aggression, I mean the economy, and please, what is your opinion on which sectors of the Syrian economy have remained functioning despite the war, economic blockade, looting, and so forth?

President Assad: Actually, the war on Syria is a full-blown war; it is not only supporting terrorists. They support the terrorists, and at the same time they launched a political war against Syria on the international level, and the third front was the economic front, in which they dictate to their terrorists, to their surrogate mercenaries, to start destroying the infrastructure in Syria that helped the economy and the daily needs of the Syrian citizens.

At the same time, they started an embargo directly on the borders of Syria through the terrorists and abroad through the banking systems around the world. In spite of that, the Syrian people were determined to live as much normal life as they can. That prompted many Syrian businessmen or the owners of, let’s say, the industry, which is mainly medium and small industry, to move from the conflict areas and unstable areas toward more stable areas, on a smaller scale of business, in order to survive and to keep the economy running and to keep the needs of the Syrian people available. So, in that regard, most of the sectors are still working. For example, the pharmaceutical sector is still working in more than 60% of its capacity, which is very important, helpful, and very supportive to our economy in such circumstances. And I think now we are doing our best in order to re-expand the base of the economy in spite of the situation, especially after the Syrian Army made many advancements in different areas.

Question 5: Mr. President, let’s talk a little bit about the international environment, please give me your opinion about the role of the United Nations in the Syrian conflict, the attempts of Washington and its allies to impose their will on the Security Council and in the Geneva peace talks.

So far, there is no UN role in the Syrian conflict; there is only Russian and American dialogue

President Assad: Talking about the role of the United Nations or Security Council could be illusive, because actually the United Nations is now an American arm, where they can use it the way they want, they can impose their double standards on it instead of the Charter. They can use it like any other institution within the American administration. Without some Russian and Chinese stances in certain issues, it would be a full American institution. So, the Russian and Chinese role has made some balance within these institutions, mainly regarding the Syrian issue during the last five years. But if you want to talk about their role through their mediators or their envoys, like recently de Mistura, and before that Kofi Annan, and in between Brahimi, and so on. Let’s say that those mediators are not independent; they reflect either the pressure from the Western countries, or sometimes the dialogue between the main powers, mainly Russia and the United States. So, they’re not independent, so you cannot talk about the role of the United Nations; it is a reflection of that balance. That is why so far, there is no United Nations role in the Syrian conflict; there is only Russian and American dialogue, and we know that the Russians are working hard and seriously and genuinely in order to defeat the terrorists, while the Americans always play games in order to use the terrorists, not to defeat them.

Question 6: Mr. President, how do you see at the present time the coexistence among Syrian ethnic and religious groups against this foreign intervention? How do they contribute or not in this regard?

President Assad: The most important thing about this harmony between the different spectrums of the Syrian fabric, is that it is genuine, because that has been built up through the history, through centuries, so for such a conflict, it cannot destroy that social fabric. That is why if you go around and visit different areas under the control of the government, you will see all the colors of the Syrian society living with each other.

Intervention: I saw it in Damascus.

President Assad: Exactly. And I would say, I would add to this, that during the conflict, this harmony has become much better and stronger, and this is not rhetoric; actually, this is reality, for different reasons, because this conflict is a lesson. This diversity that you have, it is either to be a richness to your country, or a problem. There’s no something in the middle. So, the people learned that we need to work more on this harmony, because the first rhetoric used by the terrorists and by their allies in the region and in the West regarding the Syrian conflict at the very beginning was sectarian rhetoric. They wanted people to divide in order to have conflict with each other, to stoke the fire within Syria, and it didn’t work. And the Syrians learned that lesson, that we had harmony; we had had harmony before the conflict, in the normal times, but we have to work more in order to make it much stronger.

So, I can say without any exaggeration that the situation regarding this part is good. In spite of that, I would say the areas under the control of the terrorists – and as you know those terrorists are mainly extremist groups affiliated to Al Qaeda – in which they worked very hard in order to indoctrinate the young generation with their dark ideology, and they succeeded in some areas, this dark ideology with the killing and beheading and all these horrible practices. With the time, it is going to be more difficult to deal with this new generation of young people who have been indoctrinated with Al Qaeda and Wahabi doctrine and ideology. So this is the only danger that we are going to face regarding our society, harmony, and coexistence that you just mentioned.

Question 7: Mr. President, I would like to go again to the international arena. What is in your opinion the role of the U.S.-led international coalition in relation to the groups that operate in northern Syria, in particular regarding the Kurds group. I mean the bombing of the American airplanes and the coalition in the northern part of the country. What to do you think about that?

President Assad: You know, traditionally, the American administrations, when they had relations with any group or community in any country, it is not for the sake of the country, it is not for the interest of the people; it is for the agenda of the United States. So, that is what we have to ask ourselves: why would the Americans support any group in Syria? Not for Syria. They must have their agenda, and the American agenda has always been divisive in any country. They don’t work to unite the people; they work to make division between the different kinds of people. Sometimes they choose a sectarian group, sometimes they choose an ethnic group in order to support them against other ethnicities or to push them in a way that takes them far from the rest of the society. This is their agenda. So, it is very clear that this American support is not related to ISIS, it is not related to al-Nusra, it is not related to fighting terrorism, because since the beginning of the American intervention, ISIS was expanding, not shrinking. It has only started to shrink when the Russian support to the Syrian Army took place last September.

Question 8: Mr. President, what is your opinion about the recent coup d’état in Turkey, and its impact on the current situation in that country, and on the international level, and on the Syrian conflict also?Coup in Turkey is a reflection of instability and disturbances within the country

President Assad: Such a coup d’état, we have to look at it as a reflection of instability and disturbances within Turkey, mainly on the social level. It could be political, it could be whatever, but at the end, the society is the main issue when you have instability. Regardless of who is going to govern Turkey, who is going to be the president, who is going to be the leader of Turkey; this is an internal issue. We don’t interfere, we don’t make the mistake to say that Erdogan should go or should stay. This is a Turkish issue, and the Turkish people have to decide.Erdogan used the coup to implement his Muslim Brotherhood agenda

But what is more important than the coup d’état itself, we have to look at the procedures and the steps that are being taken by Erdogan and his coterie recently during the last few days, when they started attacking the judges; they removed more than 2,700 judges from their positions, more than 1,500 professors in the universities, more than 15,000 employees in the education sector. What do the universities and the judges and that civil society have to do with the coup d’état? So, that reflects the bad intentions of Erdogan and his misconduct and his real intentions toward what happened, because the investigation hasn’t been finalized yet. How did they take the decision to remove all those? So, he used the coup d’état in order to implement his own extremist agenda, Muslim Brotherhood agenda, within Turkey, and that is dangerous for Turkey and for the neighboring countries, including Syria.

Question 9: Mr. President, how do you evaluate the Syrian government’s relations with the opposition inside Syria? What is the difference between these opposition organizations and those based outside Syria?

“Oppositions” outside Syria are traitors…the real opposition is the one based inside and works for the Syrian people

President Assad: We have good relations with the opposition within Syria based on the national principles. Of course, they have their own political agenda and they have their own beliefs, and we have our own agenda and our beliefs, and the way we can make the dialogue either directly or through the ballot boxes; it could be a different way of dialogue, which is the situation in every country. But we cannot compare them with the other oppositions outside Syria, because the word “opposition” means to resort to peaceful means, not to support terrorists, and not to be formed outside your country, and to have grassroots, to have real grassroots made of Syrian people. You cannot have your grassroots be the foreign ministry in the UK, France or the intelligence in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the United States. This is not opposition, this is called, in that case, you are called a traitor. So, they call them oppositions, we call them traitors. The real opposition is the one that works for the Syrian people and is based in Syria and its agenda derived its vision from the Syrian people and the Syrian interests.

Question 10: Mr. President, how do you evaluate the insistence of the U.S. and its allies that you leave power in addition to the campaign to distort the image of your government? I mean, in the foreign environment. How do you see that insistence from them that you leave power?

President Assad: Regarding their wish for me to leave power, they have been talking about this for the last five years, and we never responded even with a statement. We never cared about them. Actually, this is a Syrian issue; only the Syrian people can say who should come and go, who should stay in his position, who should leave, and the West knows our position very well regarding this. So, we don’t care and don’t have to waste our time with their rhetoric. I am here because of the support of the Syrian people. Without that, I wouldn’t be here. That is very simple.

It is part of the American politics to demonize presidents

About how they defame, or try to demonize certain presidents, this is the American way, at least since the second World War, since they substituted British colonization in this region, and maybe in the world, the American administrations and the American politicians haven’t said a single honest word regarding anything. They always lie. And as time goes by, they are becoming more inveterate liars, so this is part of their politics. So, to demonize me is like how they tried to demonize President Putin during the last two years and they did the same with the leader Castro during the last five and six decades. This is their way. So, we have to know that this is the American way. We don’t have to worry about it. The most important thing is to have good reputation among your own people. That is what we have to worry about.

Question 11: Mr. President, what is your opinion on Syria’s relation with Latin America, particularly the historical links with Cuba

President Assad: In spite of the long distance between Syria and Latin America, we are always surprised how much the people in Latin America, not only the politicians, know about this region. I think this has many reasons, but one of them is the historical similarities and commonalities between our region, between Syria and Latin America. Latin America was under direct occupation for long time ago but after that it was under the occupation of the American companies, and the American coup d’états and the American intervention.

Intervention: Yes, a lot of them.

Latin America People understand that the war in Syria is about independence…there is strong harmony between Syria and Latin America, especially Cuba

President Assad: So, they know what is the meaning of being independent or not to be independent. They understand that the war in Syria is about independence. But the most important thing is the role of Cuba. Cuba was the spearhead of the independence movement within Latin America and Fidel Castro was the iconic figure in that regard. So, on the political level and the knowledge level, there is a strong harmony between Syria and Latin America, especially Cuba. But I do not think we work enough to improve the other part of the relation; to be on the same level mainly on the educational and the economic level. That was my ambition before the crisis and that is why I visited Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentine and Brazil, in order to invigorate this relation. Then, we had this conflict started and it was a big obstacle to do anything in that regard, but I think that we have not to restrain the relation on the historical and the political levels. That is not enough. You have so many other sectors, people should know more about each other. The long distance could be an obstacle, but it shouldn’t because we have strong relations with the rest of the world, east and west. So, it is not an obstacle in these days. So, I think if we overcome this crisis and this war, we should work harder in order to invigorate the different sectors of this relation with Latin America and especially with Cuba.

Question 12: Mr. President, do you have an expectation for… I mean would you tell me your opinion about the electoral process in the United States mainly for the president? Now, we have two candidates; the Republican one is Mr. Donald Trump and the Democratic one is Mrs. Hillary Clinton; and we know her very well, but what is your opinion about this process, about the result of this process and how it could impact the conflict here, in the war in Syria?

No US president in the near future will come to make dramatic change in the politics of the United States

President Assad: We resumed our relation with the United States in 1974. Now, it has been 42 years since then and we witnessed many American presidents in different situations and the lesson that we have learned is that no one should bet on any American president, that is the most important thing. So, it is not about the name. They have institutions, they have their own agenda and every president should come to implement that agenda in his own way, but at the end he has to implement that agenda.

All of them have militaristic agendas, and the only difference is the way. One of them sends his army like Bush and the other one sends mercenaries and proxies like Obama, but all of them have to implement this agenda. So, I do not believe that the president is allowed completely to fulfill his own political convictions in the United States, he has to obey the institutions and the lobbies, and the lobbies have not changed and the institutions’ agenda has not changed. So, no president in the near future will come to make a serious and dramatic change regarding the politics of the United States.

Question 13: Mr. President, one final question: what message would you send using this interview with Prensa Latina to the governments and people of Latin America, the Caribbean, and also why not the American people, about the importance of supporting Syria against terrorism?

Message to Latin America: We have to keep our independence as the US will not stop trying to topple every independent government

President Assad: Latin America is a very good and important example to the world about how the people and their governments regain their independence. They are the backyard of the United States as the United States sees, but this backyard was used by the United States to play its own games, to implement its own agenda and the people in Latin America sacrificed a lot in order to regain their independence and everybody knows that.

After regaining their independence, those countries moved from being developing countries, or sometimes under-developed countries, to be developed countries. So, independence is a very important thing and it is very dear for every Latin American citizen. We think they have to keep this independence because the United States will not stop trying to topple every independent government, every government that reflects the vast majority of the people in every country in Latin America.

And again, Cuba knows this, knows what I am talking about more than any other one in the world; you suffered more than anyone from the American attempts and you succeeded in withstanding all these attempts during the last sixty years or more just because the government reflected the Cuban people.

So, holding strongly to this independence, I think, is the crucial thing, the most important thing for the future of Latin America. Regarding Syria, we can say that Syria is paying the price of its independence because we never worked against the United States; we never worked against France or the UK. We always try to have good relations with the West.

But their problem is that they do not accept any independent country and I think this is same for Cuba. You never tried to do any harm to the American people but they do not accept you as an independent country. The same is true for other countries in Latin America and that’s why you always have coup d’états mainly between the sixties and the seventies.

So, I think preserving the independence of a certain country is not only an isolated case; if I want to be independent, I have to support the independence in the rest of the world. So, the independence anywhere in the world, including Latin America, will support my independence. If I am alone, I will be weak. Supporting Syria will be mainly in the international arena. There are many international organizations, mainly the United Nation, in spite of its impotence, but at the end, their support could play a vital role in supporting Syria and, of course, the Security Council; it depends on who is going to be the temporary member in the Security Council, and any other organization supporting Syria will be very important.

Question 14: Mr. President, I know that you are a very busy person, that is why I appreciate very much your time that you have dedicated to Prensa Latina interview in this moment. I hope this would not be the last interview that we have with you.